Israel extradites Israeli-Serb accused of genocide

Israel extradites Israeli-Serb accused of genocide

Israel extradited to Bosnia on Thursday an Israeli-Serb accused of involvement in one of the worst massacres of the ex-Yugoslav republic's 1992-1995 war, the justice ministry said.

The case of Aleksandar Cvetkovic, a Bosnian Serb who obtained Israeli citizenship through his Jewish wife, was "the first deportation from Israel for genocide," a ministry statement said.

"Aleksandar Cvetkovic was extradited today to Bosnia-Herzegovina where is wanted for the crime of genocide," the statement said, without giving details of his departure.

In November, Israel's supreme court rejected an appeal and upheld his extradition to face trial in a Sarajevo war crimes court.

Cvetkovic was arrested in January 2011 after Israel received an extradition request from Bosnia, which alleged that he took part in the Srebrenica massacre, the single worst atrocity on European soil since World War II.

The justice ministry said that, according to the request, Cvetkovic was part of an eight-man squad that killed about 1,000 Bosnian Muslims at Branjevo farm in July 1995.

The Bosnian-born Cvetkovic, who served in the Bosnian Serb army during the war, immigrated to Israel with his Jewish wife and children in 2006, and received Israeli citizenship that year.